www.graemehird.com

James,

I made the image about 6 years ago and put the neg aside after failing miserably to emulate the contact print. I've recently scanned the neg, knowing that my photoshop skills now far surpass my darkroom skills. It was a simple matter of using the curves to achieve the same look that I could previously only (once) get from a contact print.

No specific burning or dodging (apart from toning down some of the edge highlights to keep interest within the image).

Some wild guesses on exposure details: 90mm lens (?) 30 seconds at f45 (I know the aperture would have been small to get the DoF) The image covers about 20 cm of wood and makes up about 3.5 inches of film area on the 5x4 sheet. I was about 30 - 40 cm from the wood when I shot the image.

All the details have been long forgotten, since this is one of my first LF images.

(G'day Ian. Let stalk Strine sometime!)

Cheers,

Graeme

Ken,

I read your plea for help in the digital darkroom forum and looked at the image. Change labs. They don't know what they are doing.

This took less than 5 minutes in PS - they should have been able to manage better than that.

Cheers,

Graeme Hird

Adrien,

Thanks for the comments - they are some of the most challenging I've ever had. I appreciate very much the way they have made me look more closely at the style of work I do.

A few days ago I did examine what I do and why I do it, after reading an article on the Luminous Landscape web site about composition. It made me realise that, in my favourite images, I rarely follow "THE RULES". I think you know which ones I'm refering to: the "Rule of Thirds", the "Lines Should Flow From Left To Right", the "Place A Red Object In The Frame", the "Colours Should Be Natural" and so on. I know them, I simply choose to ignore them when the subject dictates otherwise (and it often does!).

The comment about a lack of interesting features in terms of composition in my shots is particularly insightful. I'll ask you to expand a bit further on that, though I do think I understand what you mean. The vast majority of the people who come to the region that I live in also fail to find intersting features to put into their photographs - there really are no majestic mountains or sweeping waterways within 1000 kilometres of my home. I must make do with what I have about me. Usually, my subjects are small scale items such as trees, man made structures, large rocks, etc. etc. Since they in themselves are not usually strong enough to carry the picture, I compensate with strong colours or interesting light. By doing so, I try to make a balanced picture which has impact throughout, not just in the "featured subject" of the picture.

Of course, the obvious answer is to photograph a more interesting area: go some place where there are majestic mountains and sweeping waterways. Unfortunately, my day job as a geologist stops me from travelling as much as I'd like to. So I'm stuck here for the time being. Besides, where would the challenge lie in photographing something that everyone else can photograph (and already has)? (The challenge lies in doing it better, or at least differently.)

I am planning to leave the day job to become a full time landscape photographer. I think of my time here in Kalgoorlie as intense training, much like altitude training for athletes. If images from this "featureless" area can be made interesting, strong landscapes will be a breeze to shoot!

Once again, thanks for the comments and I look forward to reading more of them.

Graeme

www.graemehird.com

Should I crop the sides to make a "vertical panorama", or are these proportions about right?

Graeme

Graeme

Dave,

The horizontal compression is certainly an interesting manipulation which has added more drama to the original image. For me though, it has lost some of the realism that was in the original and now looks a little contrived.

I have just looked at the original again, and prefer it greatly to this one.

Cheers,

Graeme

Bobby,

Yep - that other one was mine too. Taken not 10 metres from where I set up for this one. I call it my lucky hill, because I haven't been struck yet :-)

Graeme

Thanks Ash.

There was no filtration, though this file looks a little dark compared to what I thought I was posting. Velvia's saturation enhances the magenta colour of the lightning lit clouds.

Graeme